Musings about the Expat life, raising children abroad, and life in general

August 05, 2009

Upside down pants

Here's an important lesson: You cut your fabrics correctly and you want to sew the sides up like described in the instructions but they don't fit. You try the paper pattern and you check the cutting and you see that the pattern is actually not symmetrical. You ignore this all and plow ahead and you have to futz around and cut some fabric off to make it all work... in the end, the pants look nice and adorable although you wonder why they didn't give you a guide for the top hem but instead for the bottom... then you might want to consider that you had the pattern upside down! D'uh.

I'd bought this really cute pattern from Farbenmix. It contains several pieces - a jacket, a T-shirt, a pair of normal pants, a pair of comfy pants. I have hesitated making anything because the pattern mainly calls for jersey fabrics and jersey and I, we are not friends. But yesterday, I looked at this pretty jersey I had bought ages ago and thought, I should do something with this. Also, the kids were playing quietly, Leah was not clinging to me (anymore) like a barnacle, so what to do with all that spare time?

I cut the paper pattern while chatting to my cousin on the phone. Bad mistake. She can tell you that I said to her, "I probably shouldn't cut the fabric while having one ear on the phone", and when I tried to line the sides up and said, "Huh, that's funny, those sides don't match!" and then, "That's even weirder, the original paper pattern doesn't match up either."

Well, no, they didn't. What I tried to match up as the inside seam of the legs was really the front and back seams of the lap part. But instead of slowing down and rethinking the entire venture, I went ahead and futzed. Out came this:

It's cute if somewhat... shapeless. It wasn't until I decided to make a second pair from a different piece of fabric that I had the idea to check the website of Farbenmix. Conveniently (I forgot), they have step-by-step photo instructions on their site. Then it dawned on me...

The second pair fits much better although the first one works well, too. In those sizes, such a mistake isn't too horrible, plus I learned to sew jersey. Then I went ahead and made the shirt too, just because. I don't really love the fabric pattern (those stripes are very... I don't know. They remind me of something but I can't quite say of what). But the sewing was easy and the outcome very satisfying.

I also finally finished the dress for Leah's first birthday:

And I got all those cloth napkins sewn that I had started, oh so long ago. Now everybody has a cloth napkin and now we'll save money and resources on paper towels and paper napkins, yay! I just better not forget to wash them regularly...